Abo enjoying his victory.
"Earl!" Angado was at his side. "You're hurt! How badly- God!" His voice rose as he called for help. "Get him to the doctor! Fast!"
Dumarest sagged in the rough hands which grasped and carried him. Pain was something not to be ignored, an agony which filled every crevice of his being. The pain and the knowledge that, at last, he had reached the end.
It happened and, in the arena, it could happen to anyone at any time. A slip, a moment of carelessness, a touch of overconfidence and, when least expected, death would reach out its waiting hand. He had seen it happen to others and now it had happened to him. The luck which had served him for so long had at last run out.
"Earl!" Angado was pleading. "For God's sake-Earl!"
A voice like a whisper in the darkness echoed by others, one stronger than the rest.
"… internal injuries and there is profuse hemorrhaging… needs extensive medical care but it'll be costly… cryogenic sac… move to the institute… need to waste no… must hurry… hurry… hurry…"
The doctor pronouncing the sentence of death, his voice becoming ragged, lost in the encroaching gloom. Death by inaction. Death from reasons of poverty. Death because he couldn't pay for the treatment necessary. Death, smiling wider now as he always smiled, coming closer… closer…
"No!" Dumarest forced open his eyes fired by the spark deep inside of him, the urge to survive which gave him a transitory strength. Darkness still clouded his vision and obscured shapes but one, close to his face, had to be Angado.
"Earl! Those bastards fired a strobe-laser into your eyes. There was almost a riot from the crowd. All bets are off."
Which is why he was lying on the bench with the doctor treating him with basic remedies. Stanching wounds and killing pain while knowing he could only stave off the inevitable.
"My arm!" Dumarest lifted his left forearm. "Get a banker-machine. Money, you understand? I've money."
"… hang on and and maybe I can get something arranged. A loan or-"
"Money!" Dumarest snarled in impatient anger. "Listen to me! Get a banking machine and do what's necessary. Do it." He sank back, blood welling to gurgle in his throat, to drown him with his life's fluid. To spray in a carmine fountain as he coughed and spat and said, while he was able, "I've money, damn you! Credit! Use it and…"He felt himself beginning to fall into an eternal oblivion. "Angado-I'm relying on you!"
Then there was nothing but the endless spinning tunnel of darkness and, at the end, the single point of a glowing star.
Chapter Eleven
Avro screamed; a shout which illuminated the shadows of his sleeping mind. A challenge hurled at the wind, the sky, the male hovering before him on spread wings. An aggressor, young, ambitious, fired by the biological need to perpetuate his genes. One screaming his intent as Avro screamed his warning but knowing, even as he screamed, that this time it wouldn't be enough. And to strike first was half the victory.
Wind gusted around him as he launched himself from the peak with a thrum of wings. Pinions which threshed the air as he fought to gain height, to turn, to hurl himself at the challenger, arms extended, fingers spread, feet lifted to deal a devastating kick. One which missed as the other twirled aside, to kick in turn, to register a blow which sent Avro spinning.
Whirling as he was attacked again with feet and hands, toes and fingers ripping at his wings, adding to the strain they already fought to overcome.
The penalty of age when the body grew too gross and the great pectorals, the deltoids, began to weaken. A time when lift was slower, agility less, vulnerability a growing menace.
The moment of truth for an angel who refused to yield his nest, his women, his position in the community.
A thing Avro knew from the instinct buried in the body and brain of the host he dominated as he knew that to fold his wings and fall would be to signal his peaceful withdrawal from the conflict. An act which would save his life and leave him to fly alone as long as his wings would carry him. To join the flock of other aging males who had been forced to yield to younger blood. Tolerated and even cared for as long as they recognized the victor's right.
But Avro was too new to this body and its way of life. Too entranced by the novelty of emotion and conditioned by the subtle knowledge that, for him, death in this body would not mean extinction. So he fought until the blood ran from a dozen wounds and his wings were in tatters. Fighting on until he began to fall, to continue to fall despite his struggles, wheeling in circles to the rocks below, the wheeling becoming a tumble, a drop, a sickening plunge to the jagged teeth waiting to smash out his life.
An impact which was the hammer-blow of extinction, filling his eyes with a flash of vivid light.
One which lingered as he jerked upright on his bed to sit, fighting for air, hands clasped over his eyes.
"Master!" Byrne calling from beyond the door attracted by his screaming. Concerned by it also; it was becoming too frequent. "Master?"
"All is well." Avro lowered his hands. "Enter."
He stood upright as the acolyte came into the room his face masked, hands steady. The chamber was as it had been when he'd retired for the sleep which should have refreshed him but had not. And the pressure at the back of his skull seemed to have grown worse.
To the aide he said, "You have something to report?"
"Nothing positive, Master."
"Have the electroencephalograph scans arrived from the ship?"
"They are on your desk, Master."
"That will be all."
"Yes, Master."
Avro stared after the aide as Byrne bowed and made his way through the door. Insubordination was out of the question: an aide was trained to obey, but obedience could be tinged with more than a desire to please. Had his use of the title been all it seemed? Normally to address a cyber as "Master" was a recognition of superiority and an admission of dependency but overuse could make its own point. One of accusation or even of contempt. Had Byrne, by what could be regarded as zealous courtesy, shown his disquiet?
He was a spy, of course, as Tupou was a spy, as all acolytes were spies. Eyes and ears to see and listen and a mouth to report. Had he told Ishaq of the screaming? Had the cyber reported the incidents to Central Intelligence? Had he received secret orders in turn to watch and assess and, if necessary, to restrain his nominal superior?
Avro lifted his hands and pressed them against the back of his skull. Why had Marie ordered Ishaq to join him? Why had rapport altered so strangely? Why did he so constantly dream of his life as an angel?
What was happening to him?
Part of the answer was in the electroencephalograph scans sent from the ship.
Seated at the desk Avro studied them, checking one against the other with quick efficiency. The variations were minor but unmistakable and when combined with other records from other examinations left no doubt. Even so he double-checked before leaning back to stare at the tinted panes of the window.
They were diamond-shaped, made of various hues, the sunlight streaming through them forming a tessellation of mauve, orange, red, blue, amber, emerald which flowed over the floor, the desk, the scattered papers on the surface. A transient beauty which Avro ignored as he stared at the window, the sun, the endless expanse of the dried sea bed beneath it. On it men and machines crawled in a constant search for nodules of manganese and other valuable minerals. The only source of wealth on the world and one controlled by a combine who had reason to be generous to the Cyclan.
Janda, a world as hostile as Velor, was set in the mathematical center of a sphere in which Dumarest would be found if he was still alive.
Closing his eyes Avro saw it again; the open grave, the metallic sheen which broke into rippling motion, the fretted bone revealed as the insects scuttled from their feeding place. Dumarest or some other? How to be sure?
Yet on the answer depended his life.
Avro glanced at the scans, again conscious of the pressure within his skull. One not born of imagination but of harsh reality. The Homochon elements grafted within his brain showed unmistakable signs of change. Normally quiescent until stimulated by the Samatachazi formulae they lay incorporated in the cranial tissue; a sub-species of reactive life akin to a beneficent growth which enhanced telepathic contact and made rapport possible. Now, those within his brain were growing.
Swelling like a bomb which would rip his skull wide open.
He would be dead long before that could happen and insane long before he was dead. His only hope was to have his brain removed from its bony casing and placed in a vat forming part of Central Intelligence. There the Homochon elements could grow as they normally did once the transfer had been made and his intelligence would not be affected. But, to gain the final reward, he must redeem his past failure and capture Dumarest.
Find him, capture him and deliver him to Marie. And do it before it was too late.
* * *